Overall I love the Z. It seems like it has it’s fair share of bugs, and quite a few unexpected behaviours. ie. mute tracks and I can still hear them, or disable sends to FX, and they still send.
These are my notes I made a long the way.
Mostly a bunch of question with a few answers:
Sequence mute groups? No
Panning? Yellow encoder 3
Undo? Nope, but you can save a snapshot of the project (or is it sequence?) with Project +
How does automation work? Ie. Filter sweeps (Automation is locked to steps. Smooth sweeps do not seem possible, but there seems to be some kind of smoothing occuring at times.
Nudging tracks to assist the groove / micro timing adjustment of entire track - NOT POSSIBLE
Transposition of previously recorded notes - Only available via master track
Sometimes first step doesn’t play when entering steps manually on first time through sequence - Weird bug, I think I’ve seen elsewhere.
Holding a chord and pressing steps only inputs a single note - Bug?
Saving variations of a pattern… Possible without copying to a new pattern? - Not actually sure what I meant by this
Record mutes? NOPE
What does link tracks do? Sends input notes to multiple channels… Potentially very cool, & a way of acheiving layered synths, however crashed my Z a few times, and input is only recorded to one track at a time which is a real shame.
Step component to move a trig by micro divisions of a step? Don’t think so.
Try the step component which seems to realign to master phase/sync!!! Align to global or something. Think this is jump 8 or thereabouts. It’s cool for realigning things which got mangled with jump, and repeat components.
Spark components to play every first beat? Nope, but workaround is to use the mute punch in, or velocity step component (0 i think is mute), and component spark set to every 2nd time. This way you can get fills on 1st of every 2, and other fills on 2 of every two. I’d love to see a reverse track function, it would allow for doing things every 1st time out of x amount with FULL step component functions open.
Would love to see step components on FX & other control tracks.
How to mute channel but retain sends - mixer + shift
Copy tracks? - project + shift 3x to copy between projects, but can you copy say the bass to the lead? Nope, don’t think so… A real pity, because it would be a super fast way to make fugues & with micro nudging, also phase music.
Copy track settings? Project shift twice
Solo? Nope
Clear notes - track + stop
Clear param locks - record + stop
Clear step components - shift + stop
Clear project - project + shift + stop
Clear pattern - project + stop
With certain FX like but crusher, send level seems to also be dry / wet control.
Master channel shift + track select seems to still process all tracks… ie. chorus effect is always applied to ALL channels. I would love to apply for instance only to BASS… Then automate with param locks… This applies to the filter too… But as I said seems to apply to ALL channels. So what is the purpose of shift plus track select here…
Nice tip - Delay effect set to highest white key runs sets delay to FULL BAR. If an infinite feedback option was added, along with saving the buffer on power-off, this would actually function as a way to record audio to a track, then the only thing to be added would be to extend the FULL BAR to link to the track speed function, and you could record even longer phrases… if you play with this function, you can get the delay to build up for a full bar, even when set to shorter delay values, drop it to full bar, and you get the in time, in pitch playback.
Those are my many thoughts.
What a fun lil device
<3